Merry Christmas! Review of “Seniors to Juniors”

Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating today! 🎄As those who do celebrate know, it gets very busy to prepare for the season and that was certainly the case for me, so I haven’t posted here lately. But finally, with a little downtime before the guests arrive at my place, I wanted to post this review of an audiobook I recently finished on a hockey team I did not know was still around - the Waterloo Black Hawks. Here is my review:

                                 

Title/Author: “Seniors to Juniors: A Collection of Waterloo Hockey Stories” written and narrated by Tim Harwood

Rating:  4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: The United States Hockey League (USHL) is a junior hockey league for players age 16-20 and has been around for several decades. The most successful franchise through its history is the Waterloo (Iowa) Black Hawks with 9 championships. This audio book written by Tim Harwood (who also is the narrator) provides a good look at the team and several of its players over the years.

Using various sources such as the team’s website and its magazine, Harwood puts together a good collection of various stories. Like any collection, there are some clunkers as well as the good ones, but overall, this was quite interesting. I was hooked at the beginning with the story of one of the best alumni of the Black Hawks, Joe Pavelski, who was a member of the 2020 Stars team that reached the Stanley Cup Finals and enjoyed an 18 year NHL career with the Stars and San Jose Sharks. Stories like that one and those of the Black Hawks history, such as when they got a new arena, were the best of this collection. 

One aspect of non-fiction audiobooks I always appreciate is that when the author is also the narrator, it lends an aura of authenticity to the book. That certainly was the case here as the narration was not only crisp and easy to listen to, but it also gave off a vibe of certainty. Meaning to me, the author was very knowledgeable on the subject and it could be told in his voice. It was a quick, enjoyable listen as I drove to see college hockey games.

I wish to thank Mr. Harwood for providing a copy of the book.  The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Seniors-to-Juniors-Audiobook/B0G365YNTN?eac_link=MgFQqqlqU2Gs&ref=web_search_eac_asin_1&eac_selected_type=asin&eac_selected=B0G365YNTN&qid=mUDs49qXXC&eac_id=133-8902370-9982300_mUDs49qXXC&sr=1-1